Count Frechenfels watched her skill with evident satisfaction. After all, why should he let himself be comfortably killed in contradiction to all the correct rules of carving? He was contented with himself: he had behaved with great magnanimity, like the “grand seigneur” he was.
“I will go fetch a carriage from the stables,” said Gerard.
The woman nodded, engrossed in her work; when she had finished, she stood waiting, erect by the wounded man, like a soldier on guard.
It seemed a long time before Gerard returned with the brougham which he had got ready unaided. As Hephzibah established the Count in the carriage, the Jonker turned for one last look at the scene of the combat, wondering whether he could account for that sudden slip of his adversary’s to which he felt that he owed his life. Something black in the hard snow caught his eye. He stooped quickly and took up a woman’s dark glove, half imbedded and trodden down. The Count’s foot must have slid on the soft kid. Gerard thrust the glove into his pocket. One of Hephzibah’s squint eyes, at any rate, was fixed on the Count.
A few minutes later the little brougham stopped before the doctor’s house in the village street. The village street was empty, blinded, and asleep, yet Gerard, on the box, as he sat amid the jingle of the harness, felt that the dead walls were Argus-eyed, and that his secret was become the world’s.
“Good gracious!” squeaked the doctor from his window, in a red nightcap. “Good gracious, Jonker, what has occurred?”
“Nothing of importance,” replied the Jonker’s loudest tones. “Come down, and I’ll tell you.”
Curiosity accelerated Dr. Lapperpap’s enrobing. Soon he was examining the patient by the light of hastily raised blinds.
“And how did this happen?” asked Dr. Lapperpap.
“I did it,” replied Gerard, promptly. “Sword exercise.”